General:

Chicago Tribune 6 Jan 2002 By Douglass W. Cassel. In less than a decade, international justice has crossed the historic threshold from academic to real. It is no small accomplishment that we can now plan a practical agenda for international prosecutions of atrocities. Not long ago the idea that international courts could prosecute crimes of global concern seemed fanciful. By 1992 there had been no such courts since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II. (The "World Court" in The Hague hears only lawsuits between nations.) But the end of the Cold War made greater international cooperation possible. In 1993, the UN Security Council established an international criminal tribunal for genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. In 1994 it did so for the Rwandan genocide. A 1998 UN conference in Rome agreed on a treaty to establish a permanent, global International Criminal Court. (ICC). Since then the UN has also negotiated "mixed" tribunals of international and national judges in Cambodia and Sierra Leone, while UN transitional administrations have prosecuted war crimes in Kosovo and East Timor. Witness former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, now facing trial for genocide at the Yugoslavia tribunal in The Hague, where he joins 42 other prisoners. Or former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, who along with four other leaders of the genocidal regime is now serving life in prison. Twelve former Cabinet ministers are among 49 Rwandan officials and leaders in custody in Arusha, Tanzania. But much more is needed if this initial momentum is to build. In a recent poll of 20,000 people in 20 countries, 4 out of 10 named human rights as the area most in need of stronger international control. They are right. The priorities Priorities this year should include: Yugoslavia: Thirty arrest warrants remain outstanding, including those for former Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. For years Western governments have shied away from arresting these two top international criminals. With only a slight fraction of the energy he has devoted to tracking down Osama bin Laden, President Bush could and should end this international embarrassment. Sierra Leone: The UN and the government agreed more than a year ago to establish a mixed international and national court to prosecute criminals such as the former rebels who specialized in raping girls and chopping off the hands of their victims. But the court has been stalled because of a lack of funds. Before he would launch the court, Secretary General Kofi Annan rightly insisted on having its first-year budget of $16 million in hand and the following two years' annual budgets of $20 million committed. Now, with $15 million in hand and most of the rest committed, he will send a preparatory mission to Sierra Leone this month to find a site for the court and to take other first steps. The funding shortfalls are pittances. Washington should make sure that they are filled, both by paying the U.S. share and by lobbying others to pay theirs. Cambodia: Prime Minister Hun Sen (a Khmer Rouge turncoat) long dragged his feet on his deal with the UN to create a mixed court to prosecute his former comrades. But last summer, Cambodia finally passed the law to create the court. After Sept. 11, however, with final details yet to be worked out, UN attention to Cambodia reportedly got "lost in the mail." Washington should make clear that delays must end so that some measure of justice may, at long last, be achieved for the 1.7 million victims of Cambodia's killing fields. East Timor: The UN administration in East Timor is currently prosecuting low-level war criminals. But the big fish are across the border in Indonesia. Two years ago, Indonesia's national human-rights commission named Gen. Wiranto and other military leaders as responsible for the mass mayhem carried out by paramilitary groups before and after East Timorese voted for independence in 1999. Indonesia's government, however, opposed an international tribunal, promising instead to prosecute its own miscreants before a new, special human-rights court. But when the list of indictments came out, the biggest fish--including Wiranto--were missing. Other legal maneuvers have been taken to try to block prosecutions. With Indonesia now on the list of countries whose cooperation is sought in the war on terrorism, there is a risk that the Bush administration might decide to let its military off the hook. That would be a mistake. We cannot show our resolve to punish new atrocities by forgetting old ones. Washington must put pressure on Jakarta not to renege on its commitment. The ICC issue International Criminal Court: By statute, the permanent, global ICC will give first crack at prosecuting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity to national courts. The ICC intervenes only if the national courts' proceedings are shams, designed not to achieve but to obstruct justice. If the ICC existed today, its message to Indonesia would be simple: Either you prosecute Gen. Wiranto or we will. That, however, is only a hypothetical. The ICC cannot prosecute Wiranto, because it cannot prosecute crimes committed before it comes into being. The ICC treaty has now been ratified by 48 of the 60 required countries. They include Britain, France and other NATO allies. With many other ratifications now in the legislative pipeline, the ICC is likely to be established in The Hague this year. A new era would begin. But the U.S. will be conspicuously absent. The Pentagon objects that an errant ICC prosecutor might put American leaders or soldiers on trial for war crimes--even though the treaty incorporates every safeguard short of outright exempting the U.S. While President Bill Clinton signed the treaty and announced he would keep negotiating even further protections for Americans, President Bush has made clear that he will not support the treaty. Congress has gone further. Last month the Senate passed a bill that would generally bar the U.S. from cooperating with the ICC. It would even authorize the president to use "all means necessary and appropriate" (including military force) to free any American detained by the ICC. The House passed a narrower bill, sponsored by Illinois congressman Henry Hyde, that prohibits Defense Department funds in the current fiscal year from being used to cooperate with the ICC. In conference committee, the Hyde proposal was adopted. No one expects the president or Congress to have a sudden change of heart and embrace the ICC, even though most of the world's democracies support it. For Washington to get on board, what may be needed is for time to pass, during which experience can prove the worth of the ICC--and its lack of any real risk to the U.S. After all, we waited almost 40 years to ratify the UN Convention Against Genocide. In the meantime, we should at least not take gratuitous, symbolic potshots at the ICC. Whether Washington likes it or not, the ICC will soon be a reality, supported by our allies. If by next fiscal year we cannot bring ourselves to join the ICC, then we should let the Hyde amendment expire and otherwise maintain a statesmanlike silence. Why? Because the ICC is needed. Indonesia is only one of countless countries whose courts have failed to hold their national leaders accountable for atrocities. Even if such failures of justice--and the pattern of impunity they create--do not move the Pentagon, they must concern all who care about human rights. The ICC may stimulate national courts to do their job, or, failing that, serve as a trial court of last resort. Either way, the ICC will be good news for victims of atrocities. Douglass W. Cassel heads the Center for International Human Rights in the Law School at Northwestern University.

Africa

Benin

Reuters 7 Jan 2002 Vigilante Leader Held in 'Witches' Murder COTONOU (Reuters) - A vigilante militia leader has been charged with murder in the West African state of Benin after two women accused of being witches were murdered, a prosecutor said. Zinsou Ehoun, more famous as vigilante leader Colonel Civil Devi, was arrested after the discovery of the mutilated bodies of the two women seized by his associates, prosecutor Nicolas Biaou told state television late Saturday. ``Six people handed over some suspected witches, a lady and her daughter,'' Biaou said. ``A few days later the two women were found dead, mutilated, their heads split and their bellies cut open. Their intestines had disappeared.'' ``We have arrested the six people and they have confirmed that they had indeed left the two suspected witches at Devi's home,'' added Biaou, public prosecutor for Dogbo town around 60 miles from the main city Cotonou. Devi, a woodcarver in his 40s and self-styled head of a crime-fighting vigilante militia, is well known in Benin since he boasted in 1999 that 100 thieves captured by his group had been burned alive.

Burundi

IRIN 7 Jan 2002 South African peacekeeper killed NAIROBI, 7 Jan 2002 (IRIN) - A South African soldier deployed to protect members of Burundi's government has been found strangled, news organisations have reported. One of a 701-member special protection unit for exiled leaders who returned to Burundi to take part in the new transitional government, Elvis Azwifarwi Makhado's body was found approximately six kilometres outside the capital, Bujumbura, Sapa reported on Friday. He was off duty at the time. The UN Security Council adopted a resolution unanimously in October 2001, backing the creation of a temporary international security force for Burundi. So far, only South Africa has sent troops. The battalion has orders to protect returning Burundi exiles, mainly Hutus, that are members of state institutions and the transitional government installed on 1 November 2001.

Reuters 6 Jan 2002 Cultures Collide As S.African Force Patrols Burundi By Maria Eismont BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - ``See the big car?'' a young woman asks her son, pointing to an armored military landrover in Burundi's capital Bujumbura. ``Those are South African soldiers.'' The boy's eyes open wide. ``White soldiers -- I thought all white soldiers must be in Europe,'' he says. ``It would be better if they were,'' replies his mother, more to herself than anyone else. Two months after arriving in Bujumbura on their first post-apartheid peacekeeping mission abroad, most South African soldiers have found their main problem is boredom -- and an occasionally frosty reception from the locals. South Africa has so far sent about 700 soldiers to Burundi to protect members of a transitional government inaugurated on November 1 as part of efforts to end a brutal ethnic war that has killed more than 200,000 people. Cultures collided in the troops' uneventful first few weeks, as residents encountered novelties like white soldiers with big mustaches, women troops and modern armored vehicles. But the contingent's mood darkened dramatically on Friday with the unexplained murder of one of its members. The body of the soldier was found in an abandoned house in Kinama, one of the capital's most dangerous neighborhoods and an area few South Africans visit. The incident was a grim reminder that security -- for both foreigners and locals -- can be precarious in this deceptively normal-looking city where the war can often seem a world away. The sight of the South Africans still attracts attention from street crowds but the excitement of the early days is being replaced by more mixed feelings. The soldiers are putting on a brave face. ``Going to the airport we see many people on the street. We wave to them and they wave back, but one or two will have their thumbs down,'' says the commander of the South African contingent in Burundi, General Andrew Kgobe. ``Generally the people of Burundi accept us here,'' he told Reuters. Many residents in the center of Bujumbura, mostly inhabited by minority Tutsis, seem to tolerate the foreign troops though they haven't fully accepted their presence. But the Tutsis, who have led the country since its independence from Belgium in 1962, fear that a genocide such as Rwanda's 1994 slaughter of 800,000 ethnic minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus by extremist Hutus could happen in Burundi if they give up power. And for some Tutsis the South African troops are in the country to help the Hutus. ``I just don't like seeing those people here,'' a young Tutsi government worker told Reuters, a few minutes after showing a wide smile and waving a friendly ``Hello'' to a group of the soldiers returning from Bujumbura's Central Market. ``Every time I see their uniforms I have the impression we are occupied.'' Many of the soldiers have discovered local beer, sports facilities and some have made friends with young Burundian women. ``We enjoy ourselves here,'' General Kgobe said. ``Every day we give our troops leisure time. They go out, they go to Lake Tanganyika, and tomorrow some will play golf.'' The soldiers are enforcing a new peace plan mediated by former South African President Nelson Mandela. Under the agreement, Burundi's President Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, will lead the government for 18 months with a Hutu deputy before passing the reins to a Hutu-Tutsi administration for the second half of the transition launched on November 1. The power-sharing initiative is aimed at steering the country away from an eight-year-old conflict between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-dominated army. But sporadic fighting has intensified since November 1. WELCOMED BY HUTUS, HATED BY TUTSIS For many Hutus, the presence of the troops offers hope that an international military force will not allow the army, dominated by Tutsis, to overthrow the transition government. ``It is good they are here,'' a Hutu resident of Bujumbura told Reuters. ``They guarantee the democratic changes that all of us are expecting.'' One of the soldiers said: ``We feel many people don't like us much here. ``But it is better than in the beginning. Then there were crowds following us and silently staring at us, and it was a bit frightening. Now it seems they are more or less used to our presence here.'' Although the expectations of the commanders were to have at least 30 politicians to protect, so far only nine ministers who returned from exile to participate in the transitional government have asked for the services of foreign troops. ``We enjoy ourselves here,'' General Kgobe said. ``Every day we give our troops leisure time. They go out, they go to Lake Tanganyika, and tomorrow some will play golf.'' He is not worried about the low number of protected politicians. ``We are not surprised,'' he said. ``For a week there were only three, then it started increasing and we expect there are still more to come to the country.'' ECHOES OF WAR Tiny Bujumbura does not seem like the capital of a country torn by one of the most brutal civil wars in Central Africa. Normal traffic runs in the city center, traders and buyers haggle over prices at the bustling market, and fancy Lake Tanganyika restaurants are patronized by a few bored expatriates and wealthy Burundians. Apart from sporadic shelling that echoes from nearby hills, the war is not apparent. Although fighting has intensified since November 1 and more people have been killed in southern and eastern Burundi, the South Africans have seen no action yet. ``We thought Burundi was different from this,'' one of the soldiers said. ``We thought it would be more war-like and that we would have a lot of work to do. It is boring and frustrating to sit here all the day long.''

DR Congo

AP 6 Jan 2002 Congolese President to meet rebel leaders Congolese President Joseph Kabila will meet with leaders of the country's two main rebel groups on Jan. 14 to discuss fight in eastern Congo and narrow differences before talks on the country's political future, a rebel spokesman said Sunday. At the meeting in Malawi, rebel leaders will press Kabila to cut his government's support for Rwandan rebels operating in eastern Congo, said Jean Pierre Lola Kisanga, the spokesman for the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy. The Rwandan rebels are fighting Congolese rebels backed by Rwanda's government. Congo's civil-war broke out in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda backed Congolese rebels attempting to oust then-President Laurent Kabila, accusing him of threatening regional security by arming Rwandan and Ugandan rebels. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops to support the government. Although a 1999 peace-agreement has gained momentum since Kabila's assassination last January and the succession of his son Joseph, fighting between Congolese and Rwandan rebels in eastern Congo has continued. The Rwandan rebels fled to Congo after carrying out the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which more than 500,000 people were killed and have fought alongside Congolese government troops in Congo's war. Kisanga said the rebel leaders wanted Kabila to cut his support for Rwandan rebels before talks on Congo's political future, which are expected to be held in South Africa in February. The Congolese political dialogue is intended to pave the way for the introduction of representative government in Congo after four decades of corrupt dictatorship. It was called for by the 1999 peace accord signed by all warring parties. The rebel leaders will also press Kabila to drop his opposition to setting up a transitional government before holding elections in Congo. Kabila has been pushing to hold elections immediately after the political negotiations in South Africa. "We need to sort out our differences before proceeding to the wider dialogue with the unarmed political opposition and civil society" in South Africa," Kisanga said. "Otherwise we shall end up with chaos instead of making progress at the larger meeting." The meeting in Malawi will take part during a 14-nation Southern African Development Community summit.

Gambia

Panafrican News Agency (PANA) 11 Dec 2002 GAMBIA'S HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION STILL APPALLING BODY: Banjul, Gambia (PANA) - The secretary general of a coalition of human rights defenders in Gambia, Mohammed Lamin Sillah, has described the country's human rights record as appalling. Sillah, who is also the local Amnesty International Director, told a news conference Monday that the frequent arrest and detention of innocent citizens, including journalists and human rights activists tarnished Gambia's human rights status. "These arrests and detentions without trial makes life difficult for human rights defenders," he said at a news conference to mark the anniversary of the United Nations human rights declaration. Sillah who was recently arrested and detained by the security agents for six days said no amount of intimidation and threat will prevent activists from advocating human rights in the country. "The struggle is unabated and it is a life long process which must continue. Human rights is a non-negotiable thing", he told journalists. Sillah called on Gambia government to set up an independent and impartial committee to recommend the prosecution of security officers accused of massacring innocent students on April 2000. "The trigger-happy soldiers killed fourteen unarmed and defenceless students and they were left scot-free by an indemnity act". He said his office at times finds it difficult to investigate cases of human rights abuses in the country because some victims hardly report alleged cases or are afraid to talk about them. Sillah said that Amnesty International was still lobbying the Gambian government to sign and ratify the convention establishing the International Criminal Court, whose role will be to try people who commit crimes against humanity such as torture. "AI is also urging The Gambia to sign, ratify and implement the Optional Protocol, setting at least 18 as the minimum age for all forms of military recruitment". He urged the government to respect the rights of people irrespective of their political, religious and ethnic background.

Nigeria

IRIN 8 Jan 2002 Dozens reported dead in clashes between farmers, herders LAGOS, - Dozens of people died and hundreds were displaced in clashes that broke out a week ago between local farming communities and nomadic Fulani herders in Mambilla plateau, northeastern Nigeria, police and local officials said. "No fewer than 40 people died both on the side of the Fulanis and the Mambilla," Gamji Yusuf, an official of the Sarduana local government area, which includes Mambilla, told IRIN. "Many Fulani herdsmen have since fled across the border into Cameroon for fear of reprisal attacks." Taraba State Police Commissioner Egbe Mfom told journalists on Monday in the state capital, Jalingo, that the fighting broke out on 31 December in Tonga Maina village following a dispute over grazing land. He said the violence was brought under control with the deployment of anti-riot policemen to the affected areas. "We have also arrested a number of people, who said they were hired by some influential people to engage in the fighting," Mfom said. Some of those arrested were reportedly foreigners from neighbouring countries and were paraded before journalists along with weapons, including a sub-machine gun, said to have been recovered from them. Clashes between pastoral and farming communities linked to disputes over grazing land, have become frequent in parts of central and northern Nigeria in recent years. Some analysts have blamed the trend on increasing desertification, which is pushing herders southwards in their search for pasture, often putting them in conflict with farmers.

Reuters 8 Jan 2002 Dozens Reported Killed in Nigerian Land Clashes LAGOS (Reuters) - Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in weeklong clashes between farmers and nomadic tribesmen in northeastern Nigeria, the latest bout of ethnic bloodletting to hit Africa's most populous nation. Local residents said Tuesday that fighting between Mambila indigenous farmers and nomadic Fulani had flared sporadically since New Year's Eve around Tonga Maina village on the Mambila Plateau of Taraba State. Residents of nearby towns contacted by telephone could not give a precise death toll, but national newspapers put the figure at between 30 and 50. Multi-ethnic Nigeria, with a population of over 110 million divided into some 250 tribes, is struggling with its worst cycle of ethnic bloodletting for more than 30 years. Much of the fighting has been underpinned by religious and political differences, notably in the largely Islamic north of the country. The introduction of strict Muslim sharia law by a dozen states has triggered Muslim-Christian fighting which has killed more than 2,000 people in two years. Land is at the center of much of the violence in northeastern and central Nigeria, where peasant minority groups have been jostling for farmland with livestock rearers. Police in Yola, capital of neighboring Adamawa state, said a team of officers from Yola was heading for Mambila Tuesday to assess the situation. The independent Guardian newspaper said the fighting had forced many Fulani to take their livestock across the border into the neighboring West African state of Cameroon. It said the fighting flared after Mambila youths confronted a group they said was part of a militia hired by the Fulani in Tonga Maina village. Riot police deployed in the area have arrested more than 40 people, newspapers said.

BBC 8 Jan 2002 Nigeria land clashes claim more lives The area has a long history of ethnic tension Dozens of people have reportedly died in heavy clashes over land in eastern Nigeria between indigenous farmers and settler tribesmen. Up to 10,000 people have died in Nigerian clashes in the past three years Hundreds have fled the Mambila Plateau area of Taraba state in the past week since fighting began between the Mambila and the nomadic Fulani communities. The area, which borders Cameroon, has a long history of competition between farmers and livestock rearers competing for scarce resources. Correspondents say tensions have risen yet further since local government officials threatened to re-distribute land that was not being used effectively. Nigeria has been wracked recently by its worst cycle of ethnic, religious and political bloodletting for more than 30 years. Toll unconfirmed The number of dead in the latest clashes is unconfirmed, but the AFP news agency put the number of casualties at more than 50. Police reinforcements have been sent to the area from neighbouring Adamawa state to restore calm. The Reuters news agency quoted local newspapers as saying many Fulanis had taken their livestock and fled into Cameroon. The hilly region has in recent years seen an influx of farmers, stoking Mambila fears that the Fulanis are encroaching on their land. The BBC's Abdullahi Tasiu Abubakar said the problem has been compounded by politicians who have used the land issue as an electoral platform to win votes. In November, land disputes elsewhere in Taraba between the Tiv and Jukun communities left up to 50 people dead. Up to 10,000 people are thought to have died in communal, religious and sectarian violence since the country returned to civilian rule in 1999.

Vanguard (Lagos) 8 Jan 2002 50 Killed in Taraba Land Dispute Kano MORE than 50 people have been killed in a land dispute between indigenous farmers and "settlers" in Taraba State in the past week, an official said yesterday. Armed youths of the Mambilla ethnic group attacked three ethnic Fulani communities on the hilly Mambilla Plateau area of the State on Saturday, Taraba State spokesman Jeji Williams said on telephone. The Fulani have farmed in the area for years but are still considered "settlers" by the Mambilla. This has caused tensions and occasional outbursts of fighting, the latest of which erupted last week with 50 people killed, Williams said. "The renewed clash was a carryover of an earlier one at Gembu two weeks ago in which about 50 people were killed," the government spokesman explained. Williams said more had been killed on Saturday but the numbers of dead were not immediately known. Hundreds of people have fled their homes in the area, fearing further fighting, he added. The fighting between the two groups dates back to 1918 when the area, once part of Cameroon, was held under the control of the United Nations at the end of World War I. The Mambilla were given control of the area and it takes its name from them. The area joined Nigeria after a plebiscite in 1959. A hilly region with abundant water supplies and a temperate climate, the Mambilla Plateau has in recent years seen an influx of farmers, both Mambilla and Fulani and that has increased the long standing tensions.

Vanguard (Lagos) 8 Jan 2002 Governor Assures Fleeing Residents of Safety in Plateau Taye Obateru Jos GOVERNOR Joshua Dariye of Plateau State has appealed to those taking refuge at the Rukuba Army Barracks, Jos following Sunday's outbreak of fresh disturbances at Turu and Vwang villages of Jos South LG to return to their homes, assuring them of their safety. Hundreds of them who are mostly Fulanis, fled to the barracks Monday fear of reprisal attacks from indigenes after a surprise attack on the two villages by alleged Fulani invaders. The governor who visited the barracks Tuesday, urged the displaced persons to go back to their normal lives as government had taken necessary security measures to ensure their safety. He described Sunday's incident as an isolated but unfortunate development which should not be allowed to disrupt the peace that had returned to the state after the September disturbances. Some of the displaced persons including the Fulani aedes for Gyel and Bukuru in separate responses, said they were prepared to return to their abodes once government puts in place necessary measures to guarantee their safety. they explained that they fled with their cows for fear of being attacked after Sunday's incident. Also speaking, the General Officer Commanding Three Armoured Division of the Nigerian Army, Major General Thaddeus Akande who conducted the governor round, appealed to the media not to report happenings in a manner that could escalate crises. He said the media should rather concentrate on things capable of forging peace and unity which were essential for the country's growth. Governor Dariye had on Monday visited Vwang and Turu villages to sympathise with victims during which he appealed to the people to be calm and not to take the laws into their hands. He also visited some of the victims receiving treatment at the Vom Christian Hospital.

Daily Trust (Abuja) 9 Jan 2002 Mambilla Crisis - Taraba to Sanction Culprits Taraba State government says it would deal with those involved in the crises between Fulanis and Mambillas in Sardauna Local Government of the state which has claimed about 30 lives. The State Deputy Governor, Alhaji Saleh Danboyi, gave the warning in Jalingo when he visited the police command in the state to see the suspects arrested in connection with the communal crisis. Danboyi said that the state government was tired with the incessant eruptions of communal crises and the attendant blood-letting. He said the government would not fold its arms and watch irresponsible people destroy the state. When asked why only Fulanis were arrested as suspects, he said investigation was continuing and if the police felt that other people had a hand in the killings, they too would be arrested and prosecuted. The News Agency of Nigeria observed that some of the injured suspects were taken to the Jalingo General Hospital for treatment. Meanwhile, the Adamawa Police Command said a team of officers from Yola, the Adamawa State capital, yesterday left for the Mambilla Plateau to assess the situation and complement the efforts of riot policemen on the ground there to keep law and order. Reports reaching Daily Trust indicate that the fighting, which began on New Year eve, has forced Fulani nomads to herd their cattle across the Nigerian border into the Republic of Cameroon. The police have announced the arrest of over 50 suspects. According to the Taraba State Police Commi-ssioner, Mr. Egbe Njom, the suspects confessed to being mercenaries hired by one of the parties to the dispute.

IRIN 8 Jan 2002 HRW condemns Sharia execution ABIDJAN - Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday condemned the execution of a man on the order of a Sharia court in Nigeria, and urged the Nigerian authorities not carry out the death sentences of such courts. "As the first execution under Sharia in Nigeria, we fear that this may signal a willingness on the part of the authorities to carry out further death sentences in future," Peter Takirambudde, Executive Director of HRW's Africa Division, said in a statement released in New York. Sani Yakubu Rodi (21) was hanged in the northern state of Katsina, on 3 January 2002 after a Sharia court found him guilty of stabbing to death a woman and her two children, aged four years and three months. He was reportedly caught at the scene of the murder and arrested by the police, the New York-based human rights watchdog said. "Rodi did not have legal representation at any stage of his trial; he apparently told the court that he would defend himself," HRW said. "In the initial hearing on 5 July, he pleaded not guilty. However, in a subsequent hearing on 4 September, he changed to a guilty plea. The court sentenced him to death on 5 November. He did not take up the opportunity to appeal, and his death sentence was subsequently confirmed. His execution was authorized by the Governor of Katsina State." HRW called on the Nigerian Government to guarantee international standards of fair trial in all courts, including Sharia courts, and appealed to state governors to commute any future death sentences. Executions under Sharia, it warned, were likely to heighten tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims in northern Nigeria. Several other people in Nigeria have been sentenced to death by Sharia courts, but not yet executed, including a pregnant woman found guilty in October 2001 of having pre-marital sex. "The death penalty is an inhuman, degrading and cruel punishment which cannot be justified in any circumstance, however brutal the crime of which the defendant is accused," Takirambudde said.

BBC 18 Dec 2001 Nigeria 'ignored' danger signs Vigilantes rampaged through Jos An international human rights organisation has said the Nigerian authorities could have prevented mass killings during religious clashes in September in central Nigeria but failed to react to warning signals. The New York-based group, Human Rights Watch, quoting eyewitness accounts in its 25 page report, said that up to 1,000 people were killed in a week of fighting between Muslims and Christians in the town of Jos. Government authorities and security forces failed to take action that could have saved hundreds of lives Human Rights Watch The official figure put the number of dead below 100. Human Rights Watch said both Muslims and Christians were to blame for the violence. But the report said the authorities ignored several warnings from religious and other non-governmental bodies. Signals "Government authorities and security forces failed to take action that could have saved hundreds of lives," Human Rights Watch said. "The Nigerian Government can't just sit back and watch this happen," said HRW official Peter Takirambudde in the report. "It has a responsibility to maintain peace. There were clear signals that trouble was brewing in Jos but these signals were ignored." The Nigerian authorities regularly play down casualty figures from religious and ethnic clashes to try to prevent reprisal killings. President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the army to restore order after police were overwhelmed by the spreading riots. Tension The population of Jos is overwhelmingly Christian, but there is a sizeable Muslim community. Fulanis and Hausas - two of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups - make up a large proportion of the Muslims. Relations between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria have been tense since the introduction of the Sharia Islamic law in 12 states. In February 2000, more than 2,000 people were killed in religious unrest in Kaduna, and some 450 more Nigerians died in reprisals in the south-east of the country. On Tuesday, Gombe became the 13th state to adopt Sharia, when Governor Abubakar Hashidu signed the bill into law. As elsewhere, he sought to reassure non-Muslims by saying they would still be subject to customary or civil law and only Muslims would be tried under Sharia.

Daily Trust (Abuja) 4 Jan 2002 Tiv/Jukun Crisis - ACF Sends Delegations to Benue, Taraba Abdullahi M. Gulloma In its efforts to bring about peace and reconciliation between Tiv, the Jukuns and other ethnic groups in Taraba and Benue states, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) on Saturday December 28th, 2001 sent two delegations to meet with his Highness the Aku Uka, Chairman, Taraba State Council of Chiefs, and the governor of Taraba State. Another team met with his Royal Highness the Tor Tiv chairman Benue Council of Chiefs and the governor of Benue State. A press statement signed by the publicity secretary of ACF, Alhaji Aliyu Hayatul, said the delegation which met the Aku Uka was led by Alhaji M.D. Yusuf, the chairman of the central working committee of the ACF while the delegation that went to Benue State was led by Hon. Justice Mamman Nasir, Galadiman Katsina, a member of the Forum's Advisory Council. The statement said the delegations were well received and held far-reaching discussions with their hosts, adding that the delegation to Benue State, at a meeting with Governor George Akume, was assured of all support and assistance to realise the objective of peace and reconciliation. The delegation to Taraba, it continued, was, however, unable to meet with Governor Jolly Nyame as he was out of the state. "On their part, their Highness the Aku Uka and the Tor Tive reiterated to the delegations their willingness and determination to restore peace and reconciliation in their areas," the statement further said. The Tor Tiv and the Aku Uka were also said to have accepted an invitation to attend a meeting in Kaduna, in the New Year, in furtherance of the efforts for peace and reconciliation.

This Day (Lagos) 3 Jan 2002 Managing Communal Clashes ANALYSIS by Ahmadu Sheidu in Lagos. Communal clashes are criminal activities, as at the end of it all, lives are lost and property, destroyed. Whether at first instance or later on, the police are called in to either help in containing the mayhem and effect arrest or both. From the time we had the first ethnic clashes in the southern oil town of Warri immediately after the inauguration of the President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration on May 29, 1999 till date about 2000 people are estimated to have been killed while property worth billions of Naira destroyed. These are made up of houses, cars, private businesses, mosques and churches including looting by hoodlums. Let us look at the various factors that have been said to be responsible for some of the clashes. In Delta State the youths believe that they are marginalised and were suffering some environmental degradation in spite of the fact that they provide the wealth of the nation. In Kaduna there was religious disturbance between the Muslims and the Christians over the institutionalization of sharia. A case of religious intolerance. Ethnic consciousness between the two biggest ethnic groups in the country that is the Yoruba and Hausas were said to be responsible for the circle of violence witnessed in Sagamu, Kano and Lagos. The latest of this tribal/ethnic consciousness proned crisis has led to the wanton destruction of lives and property in Nasarawa, Benue and Taraba states, between the Tiv's and other tribes. You will all recall too that within the last two years several ethnic groups have emerged and gained prominence. These include OPC (O'odua Peoples Congress) fighting for the southwest states. The Arewa People's Congress allegedly protecting the interest of the ethnic Northern Nigeria. Others are the Egbesu Boys and the Ijaw Youth Council. We have also the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign States by the Biafra (MASSOB) and the Bakassi Boys. These are all tribally biased groups devoid of national consciousness. One thing that all these organisations illegally have in their possessions and which no one has shown sufficient concern, to disposse them of it, is the modern and atimes sophisticated weapons that has gradually but steadily stocked in their arsenal. In the early 1970, the source of these weapons, were traced to the civil war that the country fought and at the end of the which these weapons were said to have been carelessly abandoned and some civilians took possession of them illegally. Of recent other sources can be traced to illegal importation of such arms and outright sale by some security outfit to willing buyers. How has the federal government responded to these mayhem, generally and particularly within the last two years. The question becomes imperative because one justification for the existence of any government as an institution is that it provides centrally, collectively, exclusively and effectively the protection of its subjects against any form of aggression, whether riot, crime or acts of war emanating from any quarters. This historical responsibility does not in any way render untrue that there is hardly any country in the world which does not have one security threat or other hanging over it, be it internal or external. It is also true to some extent that there is hardly any state, which can completely prevent all security threats, to which it may be exposed. The event of September 11, 2001 in USA strongly under scores this postulation. However, the ability of any government to effectively manage both its internal and external security problems determines its legitimacy to govern. The federal government's instant response to most of these clashes is to dispatch the military to deal decisively with each situation to the chagrin and frustration of some Nigerians because of the death tolls after each disturbance. The reason for this heavy casualty is not farfetched, it is because the military is trained to kill and not to arrest or contain the outbreak of violence internally. The Nigeria police whose primary role it is to maintain law and order and contain with the use of either "minimum force" or "comparative force" have long been neglected and left with outdated equipment, such that as today the Nigeria's police is no longer capable of containing any major outbreak of violence in the country and this is to the detriment of the society. The neglect of the police by successive military governments and to some extent our present administration, has not taken into account the progressive and aggressive nature of our politics, religious fanaticism, Unabating incidences of armed robbery, student's belligerence and industrial disputes (Borno incidence). These have all merged to bring about a violent change in our internal security situation. Encasing this extremely volatile complex is our fissile Federalism as well as our libertarian constitution which acts as a detonator rather than a moderator of internal conflicts. Also, the country today is bedeviled by the mounting wave of unemployment which creates an army of able-bodied citizens who are growing increasingly disenchanted and disillusioned with the socio-economic arrangement of the country. They, the unemployed in all cases become quite susceptible to being manipulated by our greedy and unscrupulous elite and politicians for their selfish interests The intelligence network of the nation should be co-ordinated in a system that will provide early warning to the states authorities particularly state governors, who should be able to work cordially with their commissioners of police and nip in the bud information leading to communal clashes be it religious or ethnic. I am not unmindful of the constitutional provision in Section 215 and subsection 4 and 5. But since such order by the state governor will aimed essentially at containing or forestalling break- down of law and order and without prejudice, compliance can be automatic and without breaching the constitution. However, this provision of the constitution should be revisited to allow state governors a measure of discretion and control of the Nigeria police located in their states in respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and order in view of our present experiences. The Northern Nigerian laws of 1963 place some law and order responsibilities on traditional rulers and were given the authority to so function. There is no doubt that if properly positioned by a state law or even a federal law they can still be part of either local government or state security outfit. There is a saying that the failure of justice is more dangerous to the society than crime itself. Most of the clashes that the nation has witnessed within the last two years, in spite of the fact that some of them have threatened the very existence of the nation, it would appear that adequate punishment has not been meted on identified culprits, that itself can continue to be a detonator of crisis of all nature. Since most of the "Cannon fodders" are the able-bodied unemployed youths, the federal government should be seen to address the issueof unemployment frontally. The army of unemployed graduates grow in this country in thousands yearly and with the "deaths" of the middle-class in the society and that of small and medium scale industries, the growth may continue unabated. The twin issues of poverty and ignorace cannot be wiped out immediately, but the point is that where unemployment figures increase daily, where ignorance is bliss and extreme wealth is worshipped, communal crisis cannot be prevented without grappling with fundamental issues of restructuring the society along equitable line and equal opportunities for all. Lastly, as presently witnessed in parts of Northern Nigeria, that is Taraba, Benue and Nasarawa states, efforts should be made by the Federal Government to ensure that Nigeria's integration and cohesiveness is strengthened by the constitutional provision that will guarantee adequate security for all Nigerians wherever they may reside in the country.

Vanguard (Lagos) 2 Jan 2002 Arewa Plans Peace Talks On Tiv/Jukun Crisis Leon Usigbe in Kaduna AREWA Consultative Forum (ACF) plans to host a peace meeting in Kaduna for feuding Tiv and Jukun communities in Benue and Taraba states. The meeting is expected to take place this month according to the publicity secretary of the forum, Alhaji Aliyu Hayatu, the Chairman of Benue and Taraba states Council of Chiefs, The Tor Tiv and Aku Uka, respectively have already accepted the invitation to be present at the meeting. He disclosed in a statement in Kaduna that both traditional rulers have also pledged their support for ACF's effort to ensure permanent peace in the conflict zone. According to the forum's spokesman, the ACF has intensified its involvement in the drive to bring about reconciliation among the warring communities of the two states. Towards this end two powerfull delegations were over the last few days sent to both Benue and Taraba states to meet with the state governors and traditional rulers. The statement added: "The delegation which met the Aku Uka was led by Alhaji M.D. Yusuf, the chairman of the Central Working Committee of the ACF while the delegation that went to Benue State was led by Justice Mamman Nasir, Galadima Katsina, a member of the forum's council. The delegations were well received and held far reaching discussions with their hosts. The delegation to Benue State, at a meeting with Gov. George Akume, was assured of full support and assistance to realise the objective of peace and reconciliation. The delegation to Taraba was, however, unable to meet with Gov. Jolly Nyame as he was out of the state. On their part, their Highnesses, Aku Uka and the Tor Tiv reiterated their willingness and determination to restore peace and reconciliation in the areas. Accordingly, the Tor Tiv and the Aku Uka have accepted an invitation to attend a meeting in Kaduna in the new year, in furtherance of the efforts for peace and reconciliation," the ACF spokesman revealed.

AP 24 Dec 2002 Gunmen Murder Nigeria Justice Chief By GLENN McKENZIE, LAGOS, Nigeria- Nigeria's president deployed troops Monday to defuse mounting political tension in the country's southwest after his justice minister was killed in an attack at home. The slain justice minister, Bola Ige, 71, who was also the country's attorney general, was one of the most outspoken campaigners for democracy under Nigeria's former military rulers. He died of a shot to the chest Sunday after several assailants broke into his home in the city of Ibadan in southwestern Osun State, government officials and family members said Monday. The motive was not immediately clear. President Olusegun Obasanjo canceled a trip to Zimbabwe and called an emergency Cabinet meeting. Afterward his spokesman, Tunji Oseni, issued a statement saying ``no effort will be spared'' to end Nigeria's ``culture of violence in politics.'' Later Monday, the president ordered army troops into the streets of Osun state amid fears of violence, and state television announced a nighttime curfew in the state. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with 120 million people, is regularly rocked by violent feuding along political, ethnic and religious lines. Bose Ehindero, a relative of Ige who answered the phone at the official's residence Monday morning, said Ige and his wife, Tinuke Ige, were in their bedroom when the assailants burst in on them. He was shot despite pleas from his wife, an appeals court judge, to spare his life, Ehindero added. A team of police officers assigned to protect Ige were away from their posts eating dinner at the time, Ehindero said. The Lagos daily newspaper ThisDay speculated the killing was linked to a violent political feud between the state's governor and his deputy. Last week, an Osun state legislator, Odunayo Olagbaju, was bludgeoned to death outside his home in the city of Ife, provoking riots in the city. Five people were reported killed. Olagbaju had been a supporter of Osun Deputy Gov. Iyiola Omisore. A few days ago, Ige reportedly escaped a mob attack in Ife in which his hat was knocked off and his glasses broken. Ige had apparently backed Osun State Gov. Bamidele Adebisi Akande, ThisDay said. Ige was the founder of one of Nigeria's three registered political parties, the Alliance for Democracy. Just weeks ago, he was chosen to serve in 2002 on the prestigious U.N. international law commission. Obasanjo quickly recruited Ige into his government following 1999 elections that ended military rule, even though the two had campaigned for opposing parties. Like Obasanjo, Ige had spent time in prison under the junta and was a Yoruba, the predominant ethnic group in Nigeria's southwest. Ige led the World Council of Churches' anti-racism campaign in the early 1970s and later became governor of Oyo State during Nigeria's previous period of civilian rule, 1979-83. He was generally well-liked by many of his fellow Yorubas but distrusted by some northerners for the years he spent campaigning against the northern-dominated military. As justice minister, he also drew criticism from some northern Muslims for statements against moves by several states to implement Islamic law. Ige also gained the wrath of state governments in the Niger Delta, where he was seen as responsible for a ruling that restricts the states' earnings from offshore oil drilling.

Daily Trust (Abuja) 4 Jan 2002 OPINION Exit of Exponent of Genocide By Hassan S. Indabawa The position of the Yoruba's, especially the Yoruba Christians in Nigerian politics since the 1953 constitutional conference has been the promotion of tribalism. The Yoruba leaders are renowned for the politics of ethnic bigotry which Egbe Omo Oduduwa, through the Action Group, UPN and down to Afenifere and AD in the present dispensation have projected. Chief Bola Ige, SAN who failed as the Minister of Power and Steel and the Goebbels of Afenifere, the Yoruba fascist group, has now been consumed by the hatred he has been spewing against the Hausa/Fulani Muslims of Northern Nigeria. Mr Ige popularly known as Uncle Bola was a genocide propagandist who called for the extermination of Northern Muslims. He was indisputably a leading anti-Islam, anti-Hausa/Fulani ideologue whose contempt for Islam is well documented. (See CEDDERT publication in 1999 titled: Chief Bola and the Destabilisation of Nigeria). Since Ige started writing his weekly column in the Sunday Tribune, he always spewed hatred against the Muslims. He was in the forefront in spearheading the Afenifere threat to put Nigeria on the "road to Kigali" - where about 800,000 Tutsi minorities were massacred in a short while. He used every opportunity to liken the Fulanis, to the Tutsis of Rwanda and Burundi. As the "Tutsis of Nigeria," he provocatively proclaimed that the Fulanis of Nigeria are likely to end up sharing the same chilling fate with the Tutsis of Rwanda! It is the fear of having racist and tribal bigots like Ige in the federal executive council that prompted an honest and frank response from Dr Abubakar Siddique in a letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo, also a Yoruba Christian on 3rd November 1999. This paper documents and analyses the role of Chief Bola Ige and his associates in the Destabilisation of Nigeria," said Dr Siddique. "His utterances and actions over the last few years and since his appointment as a minister, constitute one of the most sustained attempts to destabilise this country through the incitement of genocidal hatred against the Fulanis of Nigeria in particular, and Northerners in general," he added. Despite the "solid circumstantial evidence" presented to the president against the late Chief Bola Ige's politics and utterances, the president inexplicably refused to do this duty by overcoming these "evils" of destabilisation. This presumably emboldened Chief Bola Ige to proclaim to the world in an NTA programme that President Obasanjo is indeed implementing Afenifere agenda, not PDP's on whose platform he was elected. Chief Bola Ige (SAN) as the Attorney General and Minister of Justice did not hide his desire to stifle or possibly "kill" Sharia. In an economic blackmail, he and some notable Southern politicians founded an anti-Islamic group known as the "patriots." This group was reported to have "urged the federal authorities in the spirit of section 80(2) of the constitution to ensure that no money derived from the country's common revenue from oil from the South, and in particular revenue from VAT, including derivation from alcoholic drinks, is disbursed to Sharia states. They failed as they always do. The Cicero succeeded in destroying the credibility of the Nigerian judiciary. This he did by ethinicising and ensuring tribalism to be the major yardstick in dispensing justice to whom it was due. This can be buttressed by the parallel justice meted out to Al-Mustapha and co. all Northerners on the one hand, and Ganiyu Adams, a Yoruba thug, on the other. The whole world watched how our justice was bastardised by the actions of the racist and tribalistic bigots. It was widely reported that Bola Ige had a hand in the discharge and acquittal of Ganiyu Adams, despite being charged for "murder, arson, illegal arms possession " among other several criminal offences. It can be deduced that Ige was no more than an arch -tribalist, racist and genocidaire per excellence. He was a victim of his evil tactics and implacable hatred against certain groups of people simply because they differed in faith. His brutal end should serve as a lesson to those who aspire to destroy others in order to attain power. He who must destroy another in order to succeed must have destruction awaiting him at the post of his success. How apt.

Rwanda

The Nation (Nairobi) ANALYSIS 8 Jan 2002 Volatile Search for United Rwanda, By Charles Onyango-Obbo If Kenya holds its elections this year, and if the ruling Kanu loses, the new party will have to do it - change the currency and remove the bust of President Moi. It's a common chore for new African governments. Usually it's to take away the photo of the ousted despot or symbol of the fallen ruling party. When the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front won the guerrilla war in 1994, they did it. On December 31, 2001, for a New Year present, the government of President Paul Kagame went further. At a carefully orchestrated and well-attended event at Amahoro Stadium, it changed the Rwandese flag, national anthem, and coat of arms. Only the African National Congress in South Africa has had to go the same distance when it won elections with the end of apartheid, for nearly the same reasons. But that is where the similarities end. The ANC was a guerrilla force that took power through an election. The Rwanda Patriotic Front and its armed wing, the Patriotic Army, came to power after a blood-soaked rebellion that ended in a genocide where nearly one million Tutsi, and moderate Hutu were killed by the Interahamwe militia. Unlike South Africa, it took seven years to change the national symbols - and that, perhaps more than the change of flag and anthem - is puzzling about events in Rwanda today, and opens a window into the central African nation's unhappy past. The minority Tutsi formed the ruling, mostly cruel elite for generations in Rwanda until 1959 when they were ousted in a "social revolution" by a Hutu party which left 20,000 Tutsi dead and thousands more as refugees. In 1961 Rwanda was proclaimed independent by the Hutu party, the Parmehutu. Some of the delegates follow proceedings. The pogroms against Tutsi continued and by 1963, thousands more Tutsi had been killed and more than 200,000 had fled as refugees to neighbouring countries. These were the circumstances in which the Rwandese independence flag and anthem were born. The red in the old Rwanda flag was to symbolise the bloodshed by the Parmehutu militants for the "social revolution". Unusually, the old Rwandan anthem celebrated the heroism of the Parmehutu militants (abarwanasyaka). And it was perhaps the only anthem that mentioned and spoke of the country as a country of ethnic groups, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. Tough choices On the day the flags changed, Kagame came, saluted the old flag and anthem, before the new ones eventually went up. Later he was to tell this writer: "We had to respect and live with it for as long as it was the national flag and we had to do the same with the anthem". But clearly the RPF must have sensed that the change was a potential minefield. Kagame seemed to indicate this when he said: "There are some people who are attached to the old flag and anthem who will have trouble with the new one, but it had to change. "It was not a flag for all Rwandese people, and our generation has a responsibility to come up with something which includes everyone, and doesn't humiliate or elevate any Rwandan above the other," he said. If the blue, pale yellow flag with a rising sun, the new anthem proclaiming a beautiful Rwanda, and a coat of arms with an ICT symbol are mellow and cheerful, their authorship could not be stranger. Work on the new national symbols began in earnest in 1998. Not wanting it to be seen as a repeat of the victors turning their insignia into national symbols, Dr Joseph Nsegimana of the Liberal Party was picked to lead the flag and anthem committee. Dancers entertain guests. A national competition was held, and the winning inspiration for both the main inspiration for the anthem and flag came from very unlikely source - the former from a prisoner who is presently being held on genocide charges in Gitarama prison, and the latter from an ex-Rwanda Armed Forces officers who fought against the RPA. The genocide in Rwanda did three things. It scarred Rwanda deeply. It also, ironically, revealed how a few brave people did things that truly uplifted the human spirit. And, finally, the ferocity of the killings led us to take our eyes off the many "small things" that might have been the bigger causes of the violence. Rwanda is a poor country, and in the pre-1994 period, sometimes Western countries would pay salaries of civil servants for years. Partly because of that, rampant corruption, institutions that are taken for granted in other East African nations like the office of Auditor General did not exist in Rwanda. "There was a lot of resistance introducing the Auditor General's office, a big fight", Kagame says. Because there was an ethnic quota to control the number of Tutsi who gained education, Rwanda did not have a national examination board or national exams. This allowed headteachers to ensure that a version of history that reminded the Hutu of old Tutsi injustice was maintained, and to control admissions to keep the ethnic quota right. National curriculum and examinations boards were set up only after 1994. Many analysts believe that because there was no national curriculum, there was no bond that would have prevented, or reduced, the extent of the genocide when it broke out. The RPF was a government that held power because of its military might. In its first years it generally took a hard line against any form of dissidence. The prisons choked with hundreds of thousands of genocide suspects and talk of amnesty was considered to be madness. However, with the speed at which the courts were working, it would have taken 350 years to hear all the cases. When eventually the idea of pilot cases of amnesty was tried, they backfired. The people lynched some released suspected genocidaires. Some returned to prison as a safer place than the villages. In what is supposed to be a massive exercise to solve the backlog of genocide suspects, in September last year Rwandese elected 256,300 community judges to try the 120,000 genocidaires in Gacaca courts, a revived traditional system of justice, but which will use some modern forms of evidence assessment. Gacaca has been criticised from the left as kangaroo courts, and that they will not measure up to international standards of fair justice. From the middle, there are worries about whether the training of judges and the vast logistics needed will be found. From the right, both Tutsi and Hutu elements think there will be no justice with either collaborators who were elected judges letting fellow perpetrators off the hook, or survivor Tutsi judges sending innocent Hutu en masse to the gallows. Even President Kagame is wringing his fingers. For example, there was a spate of killings after the election of the judges of people who were likely to give evidence. "If courts let everyone free, or find everyone guilty, there could be problems," he said. Until it starts, there is no knowing how it will end, he added. The Arusha Accords, signed with the late President Juvenal Habyarimana government in 1993, form the Rwandan Constitution, dividing ministries, and all positions in government according to parties. So if Kagame has been praying, some of his prayers have been answered. The RPF is a minority party, though most influential party, in Parliament. It has, however, been able to cut deals with the other parties to pass its programme. When the crisis came up with then president, Pasteur Bizimungu, a leading RPF member in March last year, the RPF together with the mostly Hutu opposition votes was able to get a unanimous vote of 56 out of 56 MPs to vote for his resignation. The Rwandese invasion of Congo, and its subsequent clash with erstwhile staunch ally Uganda, also moved the RPF to more accommodationist politics, which saw the return to the political stage of its own moderates and more concessions to Hutu concerns. More Hutu politicians were elevated to senior political and military positions. More Tutsi from outside the Uganda-based refugee also came into government. Today, for example, the chief of Rwanda's National Security Council, Marcel Gatsinzi, is a Hutu. He was once Habyarimana's army chief of staff. Up to about three years ago, the military presence around Kagame was overwhelming. But times have changed. He travels in a three-car convoy. No one near him or in his entourage wears military uniform. A new confidence and even cockiness can be detected in the tone of some RPF leaders. Next year the country shall make a new constitution, and in 2003 there will be what Kagame says shall be a multi-party election, though he thinks the constitution should still have some elements ensuring broader representation. Once the RPF looked condemned to be a minority Tutsi regime ruling by the gun. Today it's contemplating political pacts with moderate parties that can deliver electoral victory. Recently Parliament passed a press law, which was designed to deal with journalists who participated, or indulge in reporting considered to promote genocide. Kagame refused to sign the law because he didn't think journalists needed to be singled out. "My view is that its better to have a genocide law that covers everyone, not one that target journalists only". The Arusha Accords were designed to control the ability of the president to bog down parliament. So rather than provide, as most laws do, that a presidential veto can be overruled by a new two-thirds vote in Parliament, in Rwanda the president is given 10 days to change his mind. If he or she doesn't, the law goes to the Speaker who signs it in law. The Speaker signed the media law. According to Kagame: "Rwanda's history is troubled partly because of laws that target specific groups. It was a wrong thing to do." Kagame says it's now been agreed that it will be brought back to Parliament and amended. "Many people in the world still see your government as nothing more than a Tutsi dictatorship that is lording it over the Hutu. They know little about all the changes you speak of," I tell Kagame. "Yes, but those who come see that is a very different place. Soon, enough people will come and go, and they'll tell thestory that there is a new Rwanda," Kagame said.

Sierra Leone

IRIN - Sierra Leone News Agency 7 Jan 2002 Over 45,000 ex-fighters hand in their weapons - Peace keepers registering combatants in Sierra Leone ABIDJAN, 7 Jan 2002 (IRIN) - Disarmament of former fighters under the Sierra Leone government's disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme has formally ended, UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) spokesperson Margaret Novicki told IRIN on Monday. Demobilisation was, however, continuing, she said. According to Novicki, 45,449 former combatants handed over weapons to the authorities between 18 May 2001 and 6 January 2002. The collection of weapons not covered under DDR was still going on under a community arms collection (CAC) programme, she added. The CAC, also set up by the government but coordinated by the police in conjunction with UNAMSIL, was continuing in an effort to "mop up" lethal weapons, such as shotguns, on a district-by-district basis, she said. So far 646 weapons and 23,525 rounds of ammunition had been collected. The large numbers of former fighters coming forward to disarm had led to some congestion and logistical problems in the demobilisation process, Novicki said. As a result, registration of ex-combatants at reception centres was still ongoing. In a related incident six Zambian UN peacekeepers in Tongo Field, eastern Sierra Leone, were killed on Saturday and twelve others wounded when a mortar bomb exploded. The accident occurred as the bombs, handed over during the disarmament exercise earlier in the day, were being moved to a weapons storage centre. The injured peacekeepers were being treated in Choithram hospital in the capital, Freetown, UNAMSIL reported. Meanwhile a UN team of legal experts sent to Sierra Leone to organise the setting up of a war crimes tribunal, was due to meet Attorney General Solomon Berewa on Monday, Novicki said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week authorised the establishment of the Special Court to try those responsible for rights abuses during the 10-year civil war.

Reuters 5 Jan 2002 UN Says Sierra Leone Disarmament All Complete FREETOWN - The United Nations' peacekeeping force said it had disarmed all but a few of Sierra Leone's remaining fighters on Saturday, allowing one of the world's poorest nations to begin recovering from a brutal civil war. Oluyemi Adeniji, the U.N.'s special representative in the West African country, confirmed the force had all but met Saturday's official deadline for disarming the tens of thousands of fighters who fought on both sides in more than ten years of civil war -- with just a few stragglers remaining. More than 42,000 fighters have handed in guns in the past year, but those in some eastern areas stopped disarming in December. Their decision followed bloody clashes in diamond centers, whose gems have funded the war, and forced the U.N. to extend its year-end deadline for completing the disarmament process. They resumed disarming after a local deal to stop illegal diamond mining. Adeniji said hundreds of Revolutionary United Frontrebels had turned out in recent days to lay down arms in the eastern diamond center of Tongo Field and the town of Kailahun. ``I am optimistic that disarmament will end officially now because of the massive turnout of the RUF in Tongo Field and Kailahun,'' Adeniji told Reuters late on Friday. ``There has been tremendous progress. Adeniji told BBC Radio's Focus on Africa program on Saturday that disarmament in those areas was continuing and would be completed as planned on Saturday, but some ''stragglers'' in other areas would be disarmed in the coming days. Francis Kai-Kai, of the National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration, told Reuters top RUF officials would symbolically hand in their weapons in the next few days. REBUILDING NATION IS MASSIVE TASK Drawing a line under the civil war will be a mammoth task. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan authorized the creation of a special war crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone last Thursday despite a huge shortfall in funding pledges. The court has the task of prosecuting about 20 alleged ringleaders of atrocities in the war, during which thousands of women and children had their hands and feet hacked off. A number of senior rebels, including RUF leader Foday Sankoh who launched the rebellion in 1991 and was finally captured after his forces flouted a peace deal in 2000, have been in detention without trial for well over a year. Former colonial power Britain, which helped secure the capital Freetown when rebels captured hundreds of peacekeepers in 2000, has trained up a new army to improve security. Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for May. Rebuilding the economic infrastructure is equally vital. After more than 10 years of war, Sierra Leone ranked as the worst place to live in terms of income, health care, life expectancy and education, according to the U.N.'s Human Development Report published in July. Hotels on picture-postcard beaches near Freetown have been looted or closed. One now houses victims of rebel atrocities. Adeniji's deputy, Alan Doss, has said Sierra Leone needs $700 million in aid a year in the immediate future to revive the economy, a sum equivalent to the annual budget of the U.N. mission.

BBC 5 Jan 2002, Fighters 'disarmed' in Sierra Leone The UN has been overseeing the programme By West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle If everything goes according to a United Nations plan, the last of some 40,000 combatants in Sierra Leone's vicious war will be handing over their guns on Saturday. After a decade of conflict that destabilised much of West Africa, Sierra Leone is entering a decisive year in a peace process which should see elections held in May. Foreign donors, led by the former colonial power Britain, have between them invested billions of dollars in the success of this process, and the end of disarmament is an important symbol of progress. Rebels need to be integrated into society However, some analysts say the peace process is being pushed too fast. They say the international community is keen to claim success in Sierra Leone as soon as possible, thereby facilitating withdrawal from an expensive involvement severely stretched by new military and humanitarian commitments to Afghanistan. This final phase of disarmament is taking place in the diamond-rich east of the country. Rebel heartland It is no coincidence that this is where the war began a decade ago. The lawless east is a place where battles erupted among corrupt politicians and warlords for gemstones which have long been the curse of ordinary Sierra Leoneans. British troops have helped keep the peace The disarmament programme that theoretically ends has been a qualified success. Tens of thousands of weapons have been collected and destroyed. The largest and most expensive UN peacekeeping operation in the world, plus military backing from Britain for the Sierra Leone Government army, has seen the military capacity of the rebels slashed. On a less optimistic note, some rebels and pro-government militiamen have yet to be disarmed, and even the most optimistic UN officials admit that both sides have hidden arms caches which might be used if the elections due in a few months time do not go well. But a spokesman for the UN said that if any combatants wanted to hand in their guns after the formal deadline they would still be able to do so. He added that the government would also continue to run a "community arms collection programme". Polls Many Sierra Leoneans also fear that the United Nations and individual foreign governments, led by the British, which have between them spent billions of dollars pulling Sierra Leone back from the abyss, might want to withdraw before lasting stability has been achieved. The rebels have committed many brutal atrocities On the other hand, the donors say Sierra Leone must avoid becoming totally dependent on external aid, or the country might never be able to stand on its own two feet. With presidential and parliamentary elections looming in a few months time, Sierra Leoneans are holding their breath. They are wondering whether their politicians are up to the task of conducting a free, and above all, peaceful poll.

Reuters 3 Jan 2002 Annan Approves War Crimes Court for Sierra Leone By Irwin Arieff UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday authorized a war crimes tribunal to be set up in Sierra Leone despite a big shortfall in funding pledges from the world body's member-nations. Annan said a U.N. planning mission would head to the Sierra Leone capital Freetown on Monday to launch the process of arranging premises for the special court, hiring local staff and beginning investigations. The tribunal's task would be to prosecute about 20 alleged ringleaders of the West African nation's decade-long civil war, which currently appears to be winding down. The U.N. Security Council voted to set it up in 2000 to try people charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international law. Sierra Leone's U.N. envoy Allieu Ibrahim Kanu, welcoming Annan's move, said the court could be ready to begin trying cases in about a year. "We are very committed to the court. The process has to commence," he told Reuters. "The political will and commitment of the international community are there to assist us." The war in the former British colony pitted government forces and militias against Revolutionary United Front rebels who seized control of the country's diamond-mining areas and became notorious for hacking off the limbs of women and children and enlisting thousands of child soldiers in their cause. The rebels fueled the fighting by selling diamonds they mined for arms. BIGGEST PEACEKEEPING OPERATION But after a disarmament agreement was reached in May, the United Nations has deployed its biggest peacekeeping operation across the country and collected the weapons of more than 40,000 fighters. The U.N. planning mission would remain in Freetown through Jan. 18 and culminate in the signing of an agreement between the United Nations and Sierra Leone establishing a legal framework for the tribunal's operations, Annan said in a letter to the Security Council. While U.N. members have donated nearly enough money to finance the first year of the tribunal's operations, pledges for its second and third years have fallen well short of the amounts required, Annan reported. So the United Nations may later have to mandate extra member payments to make up any shortfalls, he said. The world body has already slashed the court's budget from an original estimate of $114 million to $57 million for three years because of problems raising the funds. The problems arose because the United Nations insisted the court be financed through voluntary contributions rather than an assessment to all U.N. members, as was done for special tribunals hearing cases on the Balkan wars and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Donors have so far contributed $14.8 million toward the estimated $16.2 million needed for the court's first year. But just $20.4 million has been pledged of the $40 million needed for its second and third years.

Somalia

BBC 7 Jan 2002 Ethiopian troops 'deploy' in Somalia Witnesses also saw battle wagons and supply vehicles An increasing number of Ethiopian military personnel are being reported moving into Somalia. Everybody knows that Ethiopia and Somalia have always had an unpleasant relationship Professor Abdi Ismael Samatar According to the latest reports, about 300 Ethiopian troops have deployed in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia. The troop movements are concentrated in Puntland and the neighbouring Bay region, as well as the town of Baidoa. Ethiopia has been supporting Somali factions opposed to the Transitional National Government of President Abdulkassim Salat Hassan. But it remains unclear what has driven the latest deployment, and the Ethiopian Government continues to deny having any troops in Somalia. Battle wagons The BBC's Hassan Barise in Mogadishu said that according to eyewitnesses, about 300 well-armed Ethiopian soldiers arrived in Garowe, the regional capital of Puntland, in the early hours of Monday. A local businessman, who asked not to be identified, said he had seen 12 big trucks transporting uniformed infantry troops, as well as at least four battle wagons or armed pick-up trucks. The prime minister denies rumours of US payments to Ethiopian troops He also saw two lorries apparently carrying fuel, ammunition and spare parts. Another eyewitness said the convoy was led by a heavily guarded Ethiopian general who was closely protected. According to the witness, the general entered the building which has been used by Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed, the ousted president of Puntland. Clan elders elected Jama Ali Jama as the new head of Puntland late last year, but his appointment was immediately rejected by Abdullahi Yusuf, who drove Mr Jama from Garowe. Ethiopian denials Spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ethiopia, Dina Mufti, told our reporter in Addis Ababa, Nita Bhalla, that there is no reason for Ethiopian forces to be inside Puntland or anywhere else in Somalia. Mr Mufti said: "We have been hearing these allegations for weeks now and this is merely an extension of the same. I can assure you that there are no Ethiopians in Somali territory". The spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs said any eyewitnesses were probably "mistaken". Diplomats however say there is a strong possibility that Ethiopian forces have been in Somalia for some weeks now. There is speculatation that Ethiopian soldiers are also in Baidoa, training militias of the opposition alliance faction the SRRC - Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council. Reports from Mogadishu said a new camp had been opened in Daynunay. Fears are also being expressed that Ethiopia is planning to attack the southern port town of Kismaayo with the help of SRRC militiamen. But again the Ethiopian Government denies these rumours and blames the interim government, with whom it continues to have a volatile relationship, saying they are spreading "malicious lies" about Ethiopia's policy towards Somalia. Somalia's interim prime minister, Hassan Abshir Farah, has also denied rumors that America is paying $200 to each militiamen trained by Ethiopians in Bay region.

South Africa

Guardian (UK) 7 Jan 2002 Politics and principles The collapse of the rand means South Africans will pay dearly for their £4bn worth of arms. But profit may not be Britain's only motive, By Chris McGreal. Jack Straw heads to Africa later this month hoping that Tony Blair's pledge to revive the continent will have drawn more attention there than his decision to permit the sale of expensive British military technology to poor Tanzania. In South Africa, there is no confusion about Britain's priorities. Thabo Mbeki's government is under pressure at home to back out of a £4bn arms deal, including contracts to buy British-made fighters, because of the collapse of the rand. The government also faces a lawsuit from Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (Ecaar), which wants the arms deal ruled unconstitutional. In 1999, South Africa signed deals to buy $3.7bn worth of ships, planes and helicopters over 15-20 years. On top of that was a hidden bill of $2bn, some of it interest on money borrowed to pay British, German and other European manufacturers. Among the weapons are 52 Hawk trainer aircraft and Gripen fighter planes costing $1bn to be supplied by a consortium of BAe in the UK and Sweden's Saab. Before the contracts were finalised, South Africa's treasury warned the government that the purchases would be risky, and would eat up most of the increase in public spending, the money that could have built new homes, schools or clinics. The treasury warned that promises that the deal would bring in foreign investment were unenforceable, and said a collapse in the rand would have severe implications. The rand has collapsed, losing 40% of its value against the US dollar. The total cost of the arms deal, initially put at R30bn, has probably doubled because the contracts have to be paid in dollars, euros or pounds. The South African government ignored the warnings and went ahead with the deal. None of the western governments have proved willing to sacrifice the profits. Instead presidents and prime ministers have been mobilised to persuade South Africa, and Britain wheeled out the biggest of its guns - the Queen - to offer encouragement. The Germans and French lavished attention on influential ANC MPs. The arms manufacturers offered sweeteners. BAe donated about £500,000 to an ANC veterans' association. A German bidder sold luxury cars on the cheap to the ANC's chief whip in parliament and military officials. But the key tactic was to convince South Africa that it would make a huge profit from buying these weapons. Pretoria was persuaded that so-called off-sets and counter-trade would create 65,000 jobs and bring in R107bn in investment and exports. That is how the government sold the deal to the public, but it soon had to backtrack. Not long after the contracts were signed, the number of new "jobs" was halved and the cost in rand rose almost 50% - before the rand collapse. What the government did not explain to the public was why a poor country confronting the dire legacy of colonialism and apartheid needed such advanced weaponry. Mr Mbeki has argued South Africa needs to protect its waters from giant trawlers that loot fish around Africa's coasts, but he had repeatedly ignored questions as to why South Africa needs submarines. Who is going to invade by sea? What need is there for Hawk fighters and other planes from Britain at a cost of $1bn? There is instability and war in the region. Angola's conflict shows no signs of ending. The upheaval in the Congo will continue. But these are not serious threats to South Africa, which expects not a military invasion from Zimbabwe but hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence and hunger. Critics say that South Africa's real security issues are poverty, unemployment and Aids. Yet Britain and other western governments have encouraged it to spend several times its housing, health and education budgets on weapons. Western governments are usually embarrassed about weapons sales, but European administrations were key in putting together the "counter-trade" deals. They leant on them in other ways, too. South Africa's air force chiefs favoured an Italian firm to supply planes, and the Italians won on the criteria in the tenders. But Britain persuaded the then defence minister Joe Modise that there was more at stake than money or performance. He told a meeting of air force brass that it needed to take a visionary approach by ignoring costs in favour of promot ing South Africa's desire to be "part of the global defence market through partnership with major international defence companies". So BAe Hawks were bought at nearly four times the price of the Italian planes. Profit is at the heart of all of this, but there are other motives. The west is desperate to extricate itself from peacekeeping in Africa. Britain is locked into Sierra Leone, but that is straight-forward compared to the crises in Somalia, Rwanda and Congo. Blair said the west could not ignore another genocide like that which engulfed Rwanda, but western leaders would rather that African troops were despatched to deal with future problems. Although only the helicopters will be of any use for peacekeeping, a military that believes it has world-class weaponry is easier to cajole into action. The offsets are of dubious benefit. In November, BAe and Saab made a much-hyped $60m investment in a Mpumalanga timber mill - but most of the money came from South Africa's industrial development corporation. Critics point out that investment already on its way is easily labelled as new or additional money to give the impressions that it is part of a weapons package. The government can get out of some of the deal, when second part comes up in April - confirmation of the purchase of 31 aircraft. The political opposition and a leading business newspaper have asked the government to cut its losses and back out. But it seems unlikely. The government has not fought off accusations of corruption and mismanagement over its handling of the deal to surrender meekly to its critics. Chris McGreal is the Guardian's Africa correspondent

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Standard (Harare) 6 Jan 2002 Genocide Victims Want Mugabe Punished. Thabo Kunene Victims and survivors of the 1980s Matabeleland genocide have renewed their call for the arrest and prosecution of President Robert Mugabe and his security and defence ministers for crimes against humanity. The genocide victims who have been struggling to get compensation from the government, say once Mugabe leaves office or loses the March presidential election, he should be arrested and handed over to the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands. They want the beleaguered Zimbabwean leader to suffer the same fate as former Yugoslav dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic, who ruled his country with an iron fist, was handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal last year by the new rulers in Belgrade. The Standard last week spoke to Themba Mhlanga, the secretary of a Johannesburg-based group known as Survivors and Victims of Matabeleland Genocide. Mhlanga, who is also based in Johannesburg, was in Bulawayo for the Christmas and New Year holidays. "Our plans to file a lawsuit against Mugabe have reached an advanced stage and we have found a lot of support among human rights lawyers and individuals in South Africa," Mhlanga said. He said his group had also been in touch with the United Nations Human Rights Commission and international human rights lawyers who have all promised to assist the Matabeleland victims. Mhlanga who lost several relatives during the slaughter campaign in the 1980s, said Mugabe, who also held the defence portfolio during the genocide era, authorised the massacres of the Ndebele people who backed Joshua Nkomo's defunct Zapu party. "We are not going to let Mugabe and his commanders go free after he leaves office. He has to account for what he did in Matabeleland," added Mhlanga. He said the victims were suing the president as a group and not as individuals. Some of of the members of the group have been threatened by suspected Zimbabwean security operatives in Johannesburg. Mhlanga said his group now had 7 000 members, most of whom are based in South Africa. Two years ago, President Mugabe promised to compensate the survivors of the genocide but up to now nothing has materialised. Bishop Pius Ncube of the Roman Catholic Church in Bulawayo later criticised the president for playing with the emotions of the people of Matabeleland. The bishop was threatened with death by suspected state agents for demanding fair treatment of his tribesmen in Matabeleland. The slaughtrer of about 20 000 minority Ndebele inhabitants of Matabeleland and Midlands provinces took place between 1983 and 1987. Hundreds of other villagers and Zapu activists went missing during the slaughter campaign and many are presumed dead. Scores of others died of torture in detention and the culprits have never been brought to justice. The man who led the notorious army unit, the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, Perrence Shiri, was later promoted to Air Marshall by President Mugabe. His promotion angered the genocide victims and families of thousands who died during the brigade's occupation of the provinces. The late Nkomo himself, who was declared a national hero by Zanu PF, survived an assassination attempt by Mugabe's security agents and had to flee to Britain where Zimbabweans living in London paid for his accomodation after he had been told to vacate a flat owned by the late Tiny Rowland.

Americas

Colombia

BBC 7 Jan 2002 Colombia's growing paramilitary force The AUC was born out of Colombia's drugs war By Jeremy McDermott in Colombia Formed in 1997, the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) like to trace their roots back to legal local self-defence groups formed under legislation passed in 1968, which allowed citizens to be used by the government to restore normality. The AUC is in conflict with the FARC - the country's largest guerrilla force But more accurately the AUC has its roots in the paramilitary armies built up by drug lords, most notably Jose Rodriguez Gacha of the Medellin cartel, and the AUC present leader's brother, Fidel Castano. As the drug lords became landowners, buying up vast tracts of Colombia - some 3.5 million hectares of agricultural land - they took over local self-defence groups and set up their own, to protect not the local population but their own interests. And as big landowners, they found themselves facing kidnapping and extortion by the country's Marxist guerrillas. Carlos Castano So when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped the father of Fidel and Carlos Castano and then murdered him, the family swore revenge. They have been taking it ever since, killing thousands of guerrillas and suspected rebels sympathisers. The AUC counts about 9,000 members Carlos Castano is the present head of the AUC - although officially, since May 2001, just its political head. He inherited his position from his elder brother Fidel, killed in a guerrilla ambush 1994. Carlos has built up the paramilitary force of 300 he inherited from his brother to an army of some 9,000 today. In 1997, he formed the AUC as an umbrella group under which all were welcome: local warlords, drugs traffickers and disaffected members of the security forces - in short anyone prepared to kill guerrillas. Paramilitary boom One of the main developments in the administration of President Andres Pastrana has been the explosive growth of the paramilitaries. The AUC has grown in strength and influence - due to links with the army and financing by business interests and landowners tired of guerrilla extortion. The failure of President Pastrana's peace process, the intransigence of the guerrillas and their abuse of government concessions have all fed the paramilitary coffers as Colombians see the state unable to defend them. The number of paramilitaries has grown under Andres Pastrana With this rise has come an increase in massacres, and the murders of left-wing intellectuals, union workers, human rights activists and journalists, as the right-wing death squads seek to silence all those that speak out against them, or in favour of the guerrillas. Working on the principle that draining the water will kill the fish, the paramilitaries have provoked massive displacement through their policy of massacres and terror. The locations may change, but the operating procedure remains the same. The death squads arrive in communities in areas of guerrilla influence with a list in hand. The list contains names of suspected guerrilla sympathisers. All those on the list are killed, usually in front of their families and in a most gruesome manner. The message is brutally simple: support the guerrillas and you will die. And it has had great effect in many parts of the country, "cleansing" them of guerrilla presence. But those that flee run into the arms of the rebels and Colombia's polarisation increases. Army links Like the guerrillas, the paramilitaries earn much of the money from drugs trafficking but, unlike the guerrillas, their history has been inextricably linked to drug barons across the country, which is still true today. There is an undeniable body of evidence that shows co-operation between army units and paramilitaries. The Colombian Government has worked hard to sever links between the military and the paramilitary death squads but these still exist and indeed groups like Human Rights Watch insist the ties are stronger than ever. Castano is now dedicating himself more to political and propaganda work and is determined to get recognition for his group and gain it a place at the peace table, to ensure he is included in any amnesty a peace agreement would entail.

BBC 10 Jan 2002 Colombia's peace process collapses The peace process has produced very little Colombian troops are preparing to retake control of a rebel-run enclave in the south of the country after the government broke off talks with the leftist group, ending a three-year peace process. I have to tell Colombians that the FARC keeps placing obstacles in front of the peace process President Andres Pastrana Bogota has given the 16,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) until Friday night to leave a demilitarised area roughly the size of Switzerland The area, which has effectively been run by the rebels as its own Marxist state, was ceded to them in 1998 to kick-start the talks. President Andres Pastrana announced the end of the peace process in a nationally broadcast address to the nation on Wednesday night. Click here for a map of the demilitarised zone "Today I have to tell Colombians, with regret, but above all with realism and responsibility, that the FARC keeps placing obstacles in front of the peace process, making it impossible for us to keep advancing with the process. "The FARC has 48 hours, as agreed, to retire from the zone," he said, referring to the original timeframe for them to abandon the safe haven if talks failed. Pastrana has often swallowed his pride to deal with FARC He blamed the rebels for failing to discuss substantive issues like a ceasefire, and instead quibbling about military controls outside the borders of the safe haven. Chief peace negotiator Camilo Gomez has spent the past few days trying to revive the talks, which FARC walked out on three months ago in protest at military air patrols and restrictions on the zone imposed by the government. Sensing the final collapse of the talks on Tuesday, FARC had blamed any failure on the military and the government, and threatened to intensify the war. The country's civil war pits the FARC against the US-backed Colombian military and an outlawed right-wing military group. It claims roughly 3,500 lives each year. The peace process to end nearly four decades of war was started by President Pastrana, who has since dedicated much of his time in office to the job. The Colombian army is backed by the US military After three years of talks, the two sides have never reached a single agreement on a peace treaty, but correspondents say few people thought Mr Pastrana would abandon the negotiations so close to leaving office in August, after the next presidential elections. During three years of talks Mr Pastrana has frequently bowed to the rebels' demands and renewed their rights to the enclave, even after high profile killings - including the murder in September of the attorney general's wife and recent kidnappings of congressmen. In his address on Wednesday, Mr Pastrana said the search for peace had not ended. "I will maintain the doors of dialogue and negotiation open," he said.

WP 30 Dec 2001 Colombian Death Site Abandoned To Ghosts Village Still Inspires Fear By Scott Wilson, Page A22 CHENGUE, Colombia -- In the tiny, overgrown town square here, a few farmers gather each day to drink coffee from thermoses before heading into their groves of avocado and corn. After a few hours in the fields, they return to prepare their village for something that is still just a frightening notion -- living there. A dozen men who commute into the deserted Chengue, site of a massacre of 27 farmers nearly a year ago by Colombia's illegal paramilitary forces, have chipped away graffiti the killers left on the house where Videncio Quintana Mesa and his two sons lived before dying on the small terrace above the square. "We erased these words to forget this memory," said Julio Merino, who lost two nephews and four cousins in the massacre and who for the first time in his 64 years is not spending his nights in Chengue. "We plan to cover over all of it. But still my family won't come back for fear." A thatch of branches has been laid over the bloodstains on the square, covering the spot where most of the 27 victims were killed with rocks and a hammer in the cool hours before dawn on Jan. 17. Other than the handful of farmers, no one has returned to Chengue. The paramilitary group that carried out the killings, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, has a standing threat to kill anyone who does. So as night falls, the farmers head out along the rutted dirt road to the rented houses they share with more than 1,000 other displaced Chengue survivors, who await a return to what one avocado farmer described as "a fearful place." The fruit and vegetables they carry back from their fields in burlap sacks provide their only livelihood. The ghosts that swirl around this village 300 miles north of the capital, Bogota, are the same ones haunting efforts to bring peace to Colombia after nearly four decades of internal war. Events since the massacre help explain why a conflict dating to the Marxist revolutions of the 1960s continues to flourish today in an atmosphere of scant security for ordinary people, deep mistrust of government and impunity for those who commit Colombia's worst crimes. Over the past year, many of the people implicated in the massacre have seen their fortunes rise, while three members of the attorney general's team assigned to the case have been murdered or are missing. The United States, which is providing Colombia with a $1.3 billion aid package that mostly benefits the military, has unsuccessfully sought the firing of the regional military commander at the time of the killings. And government promises to help rebuild the ruined town have not been kept. Meanwhile, Chengue survivors await assurances that it is safe to return to their village, although many do not trust the Colombian military to make that guarantee. The military and the paramilitary forces that carried out the killings share a common enemy, leftist guerrilla groups, and in the days after the massacre, survivors accused the military of complicity in arranging safe passage to and from the village for the killers. As one corn farmer said, "We'd be happy if the military never came back. They, too, are our worst enemy." Despite peace talks and the U.S. aid package meant to attack the drug trade that helps fuel the war, the conflict has intensified in much of the country and will likely claim more than 3,000 people this year, the equivalent of seven World Trade Center attacks in proportion to Colombia's population. Chengue is located in the Montes de Maria, a strategic northern mountain range that has long been an important target on battle maps. Fighting has intensified here this year. The lush slopes continue to serve two leftist guerrilla groups as a military staging ground, a supply stop and a hiding place for kidnap victims. Arms and drugs pass through these mountains from the interior to the Caribbean Sea. The AUC began challenging its two principal leftist guerrilla adversaries, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), for control of the mountains last year. The strategy called for emptying towns that the guerrillas used to obtain food and intelligence. That was part of a larger paramilitary campaign that has helped drive 2 million Colombians from their homes. But of 28 paramilitary fighters captured in the region around Chengue this year, only one has been sentenced in connection with the case. Meanwhile, Salvatore Mancuso, then the leader of the paramilitary northern bloc that carried out the killings, has been promoted to military commander of the entire organization, which has at least 8,000 armed members. Two paramilitary bases near the town of San Onofre, 15 miles from Chengue, continue to operate largely untouched by military forces. At the time of the massacre, regional military officials said it resulted from a shortage of resources in a rugged 9,000-square-mile security zone where guerrilla and paramilitary troops outnumber the government's armed forces. The task is enormous for a thinly stretched infantry brigade that Defense Ministry officials say has done a "tremendous job this year against these paramilitary groups." "We should be talking more about the massacres that were prevented," said one Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. But while military patrols in the area have increased, including a new lookout post to monitor traffic into mountain villages, those who work the fields around Chengue say the soldiers have often seemed more menacing than protective. Troops have arrived three times, several survivors said, and seized shotguns that villagers said were used for hunting. "Our enemies have the guns, we don't," said a 70-year-old man who lost his brother in the killings and wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. "No one takes their guns away." Col. Alejandro Parra, commander of the Colombian navy's 1st Brigade, which is responsible for the region, said the only weapons seized from Chengue this year belonged to "guerrillas camouflaged in civilian clothing." He said that this year he had dismissed 12 members of the brigade holding the rank of sergeant and below for having links to paramilitary groups. He said security in the area "has notably improved" this year, despite his not having received any additional men or equipment. But it has not been safe to look into this crime. Prosecutor Yolanda Paternina was fatally shot on Aug. 29, and two undercover agents investigating the massacre disappeared in May at a paramilitary roadblock and are presumed dead. "There is a terror in this town over what has happened, but with our increased presence in many areas, I think the security is such that they can be guaranteed safe return," Parra said. "In every organization there are some bad members. We are taking care of ours." In the higher ranks, however, there has been resistance to such changes. According to a source involved in human rights work in Colombia, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson has asked President Andres Pastrana twice this year to fire Adm. Rodrigo Quiñones, the officer nominally in charge of the region at the time. Those requests have been rebuffed, according to this source. U.S. Embassy officials said they could not discuss conversations between the ambassador and Colombian officials. The Defense Ministry also declined to comment. But in early December, Quiñones was reassigned from his post as the navy's second in command to be vice director of the Advanced War College, a position with no operational authority. The transfer came less than a year after his promotion to the navy high command. A successful field and intelligence officer, Quiñones has been followed by allegations of human rights abuses throughout his career. He has called the allegations part of a campaign for his removal engineered by a powerful cocaine cartel, but the controversy has not prevented him from reaching high rank. Although he is still a target of an inspector general's investigation into the massacre, an internal armed forces review of the case that relied on interviews with military officials cleared him and several other officers. "What makes this conflict so complicated is that people don't want to see the truth, and so they lie," said Quiñones, a former seminary student who trained for seven months with the U.S. Marines in Quantico, Va., in the late 1970s. "Instead of finding out the truth, there is only more hate," he said in an interview. More than 1,000 people have died this year in Colombia in massacres by paramilitary forces, according to Defense Ministry estimates, and the lingering threat to kill anyone who returns to Chengue has kept the town empty. Chengue's survivors are now scattered across Colombia's north coast. In Ovejas, the municipal seat two hours away, officials have struggled to absorb a forced displacement from many areas that has swelled the town's population by 10 percent. Food, medicine and jobs are scarce. Providing rent subsidies, basic medical treatment and food is consuming large portions of the town budget. In the days following the massacre, Vice President Gustavo Bell traveled to a nearby military base and promised sufficient government resources to "rebuild Chengue." Since then, officials in Ovejas say, they have sent two letters a week to Pastrana's office and the government's relief network asking for help. All have gone unanswered. "After all the promises, the government hasn't complied in any way," said Humberto Perez, chief of planning for Ovejas. "We're not permitted into the area [around Chengue] by the armed groups. So we trust the people who once lived there to tell us whether or not it's safe to go back. Now it is not." At year's end, Chengue, which is really just a dip in a dirt road lined with thatch and concrete houses, has traditionally become the locus of New Year's Eve celebrations in the area. Children of the Oviedo, Lopez and Merino families, the three clans that have grown shiny, sweet avocados in these hills for generations, would burn the "old year" in effigy, eat pork and peasant soup, and drink cane liquor until sunrise. This year, villagers will remain far away, living eight to a room in forced exile. But the leftist guerrillas whom the paramilitary sought to chase out have already returned, even though there is, in the words of one farmer, "nothing for them here." Next to chipped "AUC Special Forces Northern Bloc" graffiti on the house where Pedro Barreto lived before his death, the words "FARC Present" have been carved into the wood. A walk around the village shows a community life suspended. The two-room school still has lessons written in pink chalk on the blackboard. A mural outlining the "rights of a child" in cartoon figures faces a wall where "No Future" has been scrawled in Spanish in yellow chalk. Ramon Oviedo Merino, a 50-year-old farmer who lost a cousin and a nephew, worries about how he will pay university tuition for his two children, one studying to become a veterinarian, the other a psychologist. Marlena Lopez, whose three brothers, nephew and brother-in-law were killed and whose pink house was burned, sells homemade cakes door to door in Ovejas to help support her 87-year-old mother. The two women live there with children and grandchildren in a small, tidy house. A talking parrot climbs the palm and banana trees in the courtyard out back. "I don't know if I'd go back even if I could," Lopez said with tears in her eyes.

Peru

IPS 3 Jan 2002 Truth Commission Gets Off to Slow Start, say Activists By Abraham Lama, Inter Press Service LIMA, Jan 2 (IPS) - The Truth Commission set up in 2001 in Peru to investigate the political violence that led to the killing and forced disappearance of nearly 29,000 people over the past 20 years has been slow in getting off the ground, according to human rights groups. The commission was created to investigate human rights abuses committed in the context of the armed forces' fight against two insurgent groups, which were also rivals: the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the smaller Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), a Marxist group. The Truth Commission was created on Jun 2 by the caretaker government of Valentín Paniagua, which governed in the transition period between the November 2000 fall of Alberto Fujimori (1990- 2000), who was given asylum in Japan, and the Jul 28 swearing-in of President Alejandro Toledo. The chair of the Truth Commission, a former rector of Lima's Catholic University, Salomón Lerner, said it was not the commission's job to impose sanctions, but to ''act with the purpose of purifying the national conscience, and to bring to light what was hidden.'' The Commission is made up of two Catholic priests, an evangelical pastor, and six representatives of civil society. Among the members figure retired air force general Luis Arias Graziani and the former rector of the Huamanga Alberto Morote University, the brother of a Sendero Luminoso leader who is now in prison. Arias Graziani and Morote are seen basically as representatives of the armed forces and Sendero Luminoso, respectively. The first step taken by the commission was to clearly define the period to be considered. Some political parties wanted it to cover only the years of the authoritarian Fujimori regime, from 1990 to 2000, arguing that the governments of Fernando Belaunde (1980-85) and Alan García (1985-90) were democratic. But that argument was ruled out, given that just 26 percent of a total of 6,200 forced disappearances took place during the 10 years Fujimori was in power, compared to 47 percent during Belaunde's five-year term and 27 percent under García. The group also decided to extend its investigations to November 2000, when Fujimori was removed from office by Congress, despite the fact that Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA were officially declared defeated by the government in 1998. The Truth Commission is just now getting to work, this week, although preliminary contacts have been made with the families of the disappeared and survivors of massacres. Next Saturday and Sunday, the commission will meet in Lima with the coordinators of its regional and local offices, to launch the investigations, one of the commission's members, Carlos Tapia, told IPS. Tapia is a former leader of the United Left Front and the director of a group that provides support to people displaced by the civil war, who want to return home. Ernesto de la Jara, with the Legal Defence Institute, complained of the inoperativeness of the commission, ''a year into the transition to democracy, and after the Inter-American Court on Human Rights already nullified Fujimori's amnesty for members of the military implicated in crimes against humanity. ''The biggest threat to human